from a nonconstantian and postmodern perspective

Category: community

Tom Wright, I believe, said something like, “I believe I’m right 2/3 of the time. The challenge is that I am never sure exactly which 2/3 that is.”

I’m pretty sure I agree with him about this. What I mean by that is that I recognize I am not right about everything.

On the other hand, everything I think I understand or believe, I also believe I am right (or correct) about. One can’t affirm that one is right about something and at the same time claim to be wrong about that, after all.

But, then, I’d also have to admit that I don’t always agree with me.

That is, when I consider the way I understand and believe some things now, I can see how my perspectives have changed over the years.

This may be news to some of you, but I do not see the world, understand the world, believe exactly the same things about the world, as I did when I was, say, 25.

I don’t always agree with me.

Thankfully, I have learned to give myself some grace in this, because sometimes it is hard to grasp. On some things I’ve changed quite a bit.

The biggest challenge I feel in all of this is I often wonder how the 54 year old me would communicate with the 25 year old me. This is a challenge because the way I remember the 25 year old me, I wouldn’t (then) have wanted much to do with me (now).

Many of the changes I have experienced as growth would have seemed, to the 25 year old me, as compromising my faith. Or maybe even abandoning it.

So, as I have aged, I have changed in these two ways:

some of my beliefs have changed

I have more grace for understanding, or at least remaining in relationship with, those with whom I disagree.

I would really, really like to think I’ve always extended such grace to others. But since I’m not so sure the younger me would have extended it to the older me, I really can’t say.

Do you always agree with you? Do you have grace for those with whom you disagree? Do you have grace for yourself on things (beliefs, perspectives, opinions) on which you have changed?

Share this:

Like this:

Can I admit to you here how much I hate being treated like I don’t know what I’m doing?

Except, of course, when I am admittedly a novice or rookie.

But: I’ve been at this pastoring thing for almost 30 years! So when someone approaches me – especially when they condescendingly share that it’s from the Holy Spirit – that I need to change this or stop doing that or start preaching this other way/topic/etc., I really, sometimes, want to scream.

So far, I haven’t scream in the face of anyone who has so intended to bless me.

You see, that’s the problem: in most every case (if not EVERY case), the intent is to bless, not to curse. The condescending tone belies the fact that, and I have to believe this, most everyone is really just doing the best they can.

Sometimes, someone else’s “best” includes advising me on something I have compiled a good bit of experience, prayer, reflection, and study on. So it hurts.

On the other hand: there are areas outside – even WAY outside – of my expertise on which I readily offer unsolicited and probably suggestions and insights.

Share this:

Like this:

I am writing this to be read on Friday, April 13th. We’ll have another Friday the 13th in July of this year.

What do you think about Friday the 13th? The Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina estimated in 2012 that between 17 and 21 million Americans struggle to some degree or other with stress related to Friday the 13th. The same group estimates that people changing their behavior because of Friday the 13th costs between $800 and $900 million in business.

Symptoms range from mild anxiety to full-on panic attacks.
And, of course, a new movie in the Friday the 13th series debuts nearly every time one occurs.

Though many connect anxiety related to Friday the 13th to Jesus plus his 12 disciples making 13, there is no historical evidence of the day actually causing anxiety before the 19th century.

While I don’t suffer stress related to this particular day, I have to admit I have some of my own superstitions. For example, though I know Jesus tells us that God makes the rain fall on the just and unjust, I still sometimes imagine God as trying to send me messages through difficulty or trial.

All of which reminds me of a phrase I learned when I served in small-town churches. The phrase was “don’t borrow worry.”

In teaching the disciples (and everyone else in the crowd that day) not to worry, but, rather, to seek God first. Peter advises us all to, “Throw all your anxiety onto him [Jesus], because he cares about you.” (1 Peter 5:7)

So, if you are anxious today, or any day, take a deep breath. Hold it for a 5 count, and release it slowly. Do it again. As you breathe slowly, try a breath prayer.

Peace,Pastor Steve Heyduck

Share this:

Like this:

Over the years, I have gotten to the place where I don’t blog in a reactionary way as I once did. But the school shooting in Florida last week has gotten me thinking.

Ok, that’s not exactly right. The Parkland High school shooting has gotten me praying and thinking – trying to find something to do besides praying and thinking. yes, I have been praying and thinking about what do to beyond praying and thinking.

And then, wouldn’t you know it, I hear a cell phone notification tone during Young Disciples Time at our 8:30 am worship service. It wasn’t too loud; actually, not really loud enough to be distracting.

But loud enough to get me thinking.

You see, I was already determined to focus the pastoral prayer that morning on inviting God to challenge us, God’s people, followers of Jesus, to do something as a response to the incredible rise of school shootings.

We need to pray, this is beyond question. But it seems that at times like this – especially as there are SO MANY times like this! – to say we should pray can become a cop out.

“Well, I’ve prayed, I don’t know what else I can do!” we might be tempted to say.

And then the notification tone. Which, of course, made me check my phone. It wasn’t on silent! I quickly, simply, silently, switched it to silent.

I did not pray and ask God to silence my phone.

That would have been missing the point entirely of God having created us in God’s own image and calling us into partnership for stewarding creation.

I can, of course, pray and ask God to help me remember to silence my phone. But it makes little sense to leave such a thing to making a request of God when there is something I can do.

So: I don’t know exactly what we are going to do as Americans about the tragedy of school shootings, but I know prayer can’t be all we do.

We must at least remember, as we pray, that prayer is communication between us and God.

We talk, God listens.

God talks, we listen.

Not always necessarily in this order. ( we who recognize prevenient grace would likely have to admit that some of the times we pray we pray in response to the Holy Spirit’s urging.)

When we dare pray about school shootings, I feel pretty confident God is going to answer us.

Are we ready to hear what God has to say? I don’t know for sure. But I do know that if by “praying” I mean “tell God how bothered you are about ______ and leave it up to God to fix it,” I’ve not actually come to grips with what prayer is.

Call this burying the lead, but this post is, if you haven’t already caught on, inspired by the reports that the tickets for tonight’s State of the Union included a misspelling. “Union” was spelled “Uniom.”

And, of course, this mistake exploded around social media and late night comedy.

Which, likely, has some people feeling defensive for the President.

I feel for everyone here; I enjoy getting laughs at things I post, and sometimes those laughs are at someone else’s expense.

But here’s the deal: the real problem, as I see it, is neither the type nor the jabs for laughter’s sake. No, the real problem is that many of us are more than willing to laugh – we share, forward, retweet, when “the other side” slips up, but we get all bent out of shape when someone we support is the object of any ridicule or humor.

Maybe it is ok to enjoy a laugh about a mistake made by someone you don’t like or respect. But if it’s ok for you, try not to get bent out of shape when someone else is laughing at someone you like and respect.

Share this:

Like this:

I just finished my first read of Adam Alter’s Irresistible. I clarified “my first read” because I am going to start it again today. I social media-ed that “I can’t put it down,” partly for the irony, partly because I really enjoyed the read.

We are, most of us, addicted to technology that didn’t exist at the turn of the century. If we aren’t addicted, we have certainly learned to rely heavily upon it.

Case in point: I tried the other day to remember how I got directions and found places before google maps and gps technology.

All I could think of was Mapquest. Mapping and printing out maps and carrying them with me.

Alter doesn’t spend much time on using our phones to find our next lunch stop. Rather, he digs into why we are so addictable and how high tech and low tech companies keep us hooked.

His thesis relies on behavioral addiction being analogous to substance addiction, and, while you might not buy this link, I do.

After all, I have a fitbit, and have had one since 2012.

That’s when I joined the health care plan I have currently, so that’s when I became eligible to earn rewards for reaching or achieving certain activity levels. Since then, I can assure you, I have averaged a little more than 12,000 steps per day. My resting heart-rate, since I “upgraded” to a tracker that monitors my pulse, has averaged 59 this year.

Alter suggests that fitness trackers lead us to place our emphasis in the wrong place. We walk (or run) for the sake of the counter, rather than for health.

I had to admit this morning there may be some truth to this contention.

I’ve been a runner for at least 7 years. That’s when I became a father again at age 46, and committed to being a vital 64 and 66 when my 2 younger kids graduate.

But I achieved the final level of reward that my health plan offers during the first week of December.

And I haven’t run very much since then. I’ve been lacking the motivation.

When I started, good health was all the motivation I needed. It seems the opportunity for cash rewards (and, honestly, not all that much cash) has blurred that original vision.

I am going to keep wearing my fitbit – it serves as my watch, after all! – but I think my motivation needs a bit of

RECALCULATING

How’s your motivation? Are you distracted by technology, or have you found ways to keep it’s addictive nature in check? If you have developed practices to integrate tech into your life but not let it run you, please let me know, and share them. Because this confrontation isn’t going to get any easier!

Share this:

Like this:

Once I noticed the little girl crying, I could not not think about it.

Being at an elementary school to meet with a 4th grader I mentor, I was sensitive to the little girl’s privacy and space. Had this happened at the church I pastor, I wouldn’t have felt the same nudge to maintain my distance.

After all, at least two teachers had stopped to talk with her.

Her situation wasn’t desperate or an emergency, but I still could not really focus on anything else. After all, I’d just preached on our “participating in Christ’s suffering” in Philippians 3. Part of what Paul is writing about, I argued, is that we must be willing to feel.

And, oh, was I feeling. So I was praying. But I wasn’t willing only to pray, so I decided I would ask a teacher.

I caught one of the teachers on lunch duty and asked. Of course, I started with, “I realize this may be none of my business….”

“She’s homesick.” Then the teacher added, “and she sees these tables (where I was sitting) other parents come to see their kids, and it doesn’t help.”

I was an adult there to visit a child. Not my child. Yet, my actions, to a homesick little girl, could add to her feelings of homesickness. But my visit wasn’t aimed at her.

Almost every time there is a disaster somewhere, and someone gives thanks for being spared, someone else replies with some version of “Why are you thankful? Are you saying God struck down the people who weren’t spared?”

To be fair, with almost every disaster, it is a matter of minutes before someone somewhere casts judgment, and claims God sent the disaster.

But most of us, in expressing thanks, or in simply trying to do something good (like visit a child at lunch), aren’t aiming our intentions at you.

And I’ll try to remember this next time I’m the hurt or grieving one and I observe someone experiencing joy.